China used US military designs to build robot quadrupeds — and now they're taking over

China's Unitree Robotics, the world's biggest producer of humanoid and canine robots

base designs for its most successful four-legged machines on innovations funded by the U.S. military

According to three top robotics researchers and a former U.S. defense official

the Chinese company's $1,600 Go-To model, launched in 2023, helped the company rapidly dominate the global quadruped robot market

The firm's imminent Shanghai stock market debut has drawn frenzied demand. The success of these robots draws on breakthroughs in quadruped movement

financed by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory and other military programs, the researchers and the former official told Reuters

That core technology is at the heart of all of the Chinese-legged robots

that I've actually seen be successful to date. It's a completely different paradigm that we were a part of developing

as part of our academic careers. There were papers published, and then these papers were very closely studied by Chinese companies like Unitree

And these principles were put to work and then scaled in an exceptional way using amazing manufacturing and supply chain technology

to where now you see companies like Unitree and other companies in China are shipping way more legged robots than American companies are

I think the biggest factor in China's advantage for developing its robotics industry is its massive industrial base

You know it a vast ecosystem of manufacturing factories and things that provide both kind of demand side support for its robotics industry as well as cheap access to all the components it needs to manufacture those And I think the military side of the robotics ecosystem really is kind of riding on the benefits

of that much broader commercial ecosystem. And when I look at where the US has fallen behind

I see that loss and hollowing out of the manufacturing sector as being a really big driver of why

the kind of corresponding national security applications have fallen behind as well. The episode underscores broader problems with the United

States' ability to compete with China's state-directed manufacturing sector in high-tech strategic industries, including those critical to national security. Backed by subsidies

Chinese companies have seized market share across industries such as solar panels

drones, EVs, and quantum communications, many of which were first developed in the U.S

with government or military backing. There's no way we're going to do this completely on our own as the U.S

We need to work closely with our allies. In particular, at Ghost, we work very closely with companies in Korea, in Taiwan, in Japan

where they have some of this manufacturing and supply chain expertise. So there's absolutely no path forward without them

I do think that we also have to have a strategic ability to source these products strategically in the U.S. as well

So I think some amount of strategic supply is going to be critical as well

and then the ability to service these products. In June, the Pentagon added Unitry to a list of Chinese military companies

calling it a, quote, contributor to the Chinese defense industrial base. That designation falls short of a sanction

but limits the U.S. military's future use of Unitry's technology. The PLA did not respond to a comment request